Bachelor of Science of Journalism (BSJ), Ohio University, 2015, Journalism

This thesis examines the comparative relationship between ESPN and Fox Sports One through the content of their original programming. A laboratory experiment showing participants stimuli from the ESPN program SportsCenter and the Fox Sports One program Fox Sports Live is used to generate statistical evidence that viewer attitudes of the two programs are equivalent. This finding is surrounded with a general analysis of the empirical components of the other original programming broadcast by both networks. The vast economic power of both entities are viewed through both competitive marketing theory and the lens of political economy to situate these findings within the economic sphere they reside in.

Committee: Carson Wagner Dr. (Advisor) Subjects: Communication; Experiments

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2022, English

The teaching, learning, and administration of writing in higher education are increasingly being influenced by new technologies called analytics. Analytics are being used to teach disciplinary knowledge and predict and promote student success, but the approaches these technologies use may not resonate with evidence-based research about how writing is learned and may risk creating inequity in student experiences. Thus, this project explores explore how analytics are impacting the teaching, learning, and administration of writing in higher education. Stakeholders in Writing Studies are in a kairotic moment where they have a choice to about whether to engage in questions about analytics. This dissertation offers ideas and strategies for stakeholders in writing to engage with analytics in their work and looks towards future visions for what technology use might look like in Writing Studies.

Committee: Tim Lockridge (Committee Chair); Elizabeth Wardle (Committee Member); Jim Coyle (Committee Member); Michele Simmons (Committee Member); Linh Dich (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Education Policy; Educational Technology; Rhetoric; Technical Communication

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2015, Economics

In the first essay, entitled “Voluntary Contributions and Collective Redistribution”, I answer two key economic questions: (1) how will members of a group distribute the payoffs of a joint project when they can bargain over the output's value? (2) How does collective bargaining over the shares of joint output affect individual investment decisions? I approach these questions both theoretically experimentally. The model consists of an investment stage in which contributions are scaled up and become part of a common fund, just as in a public goods game, and then members of the committee bargain with alternating offers (the well-known Baron and Ferejohn game 1989, henceforth BF). When bargaining, a member is randomly selected as the proposer to redistribute the common fund among the members, whom subsequently proceed to vote. If the proposal receives a majority of votes, the allocation is binding, if not, the process repeats itself. Under the stationary refinement of strategies (used in almost all models of bargaining), the equilibrium specification prescribes no contributions to the common fund due to strategic bargaining incentives to exclude redundant members from the allocation by offering shares only to a minimum winning coalition required for approval. Another prediction is that proposers possess a payoff advantage, which has been verified in previous experimental implementations of the bargaining game without contributions. In a variant of my model, the probability of being the proposer depends on a member's contribution relative to her partners' investments, surprisingly yielding similar predictions and experimental results. Contrary to the predictions, the experimental evidence shows that a virtuous cycle arises in which contributions grow close to full efficiency because members redistribute in a fair manner. Incentives to free ride, by contributing little and attempting to retain a large portion of the fund, are halted by the low acceptance rates faced by (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: John Kagel (Advisor); Jim Peck (Advisor); Paul Healy (Committee Member) Subjects: Economics

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2009, Communication

Politics and the economy are inextricably linked. This study argues that the economy has been an under-developed contextual variable capable of coordinating the process and consequences of political communication. An economic theory of political communication effects is proposed to capture the dynamic ecology of citizens' political involvement. In particular, economic conditions are theorized to impact voters' news media use and political learning through a series of mechanisms.The study analyzed fifty years of ANES (American National Election Studies) data through using multilevel modeling techniques. Results show that a) both the “bad news-prone” media and economically-rational voters were reactive to serious economic declines; b) based on subjective value judgments, political information from the news media was perceived to carry different levels of gratifications and utilities under different economic conditions; and c) voters with different levels of learning motivation exhibited varying degrees of learning effects through seeking and absorbing campaign information from the news media. The contribution of this study lies in its focus on one societal level variable, the economy to examine political communication effects. Given that informed participation strikes at the very heart of representative democracy, it is important to understand the underlying processes and mechanisms of political learning from both micro and macro perspectives. The current study provides solid evidence to support the arguments from existing literature on the role of motivation, media use, and information environment in learning about politics. In addition, a causal flow is established from the presence of an economic crisis, to learning motivation, to news exposure, and finally to knowledge acquisition. It is maintained that the study of political communication can benefit from considering macro economic variables, which can bring more explanatory power to models of political communic (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: William Eveland Jr. (Advisor); Andrew Hayes (Committee Member); Gerald Kosicki (Committee Member) Subjects: Behaviorial Sciences; Communication; Mass Media; Political Science